Unit 1.7 Building Molecules
This section deals with ways to enhance student understanding
about molecular structures. Balloons are used to illustrate
the shapes of bonding orbitals in atoms.
Video program cues: 42:40-57:20

Relativity of atoms

"Atoms really are not the central thing in
chemistry at all because they are like the Lego blocks that
are used to build things; the molecules are much more interesting,
they're combinations of atoms together. And then of course
what people don't realize is that when you take two atoms
together and form a molecule or some other substance, that
other substance is completely different from the character
of the separate atoms . Hydrogen atoms are extremely
reactive, oxygen atoms are very reactive. If you combine
them together, you get H2O, which is some non-reactive
substance but if you get hydrogen peroxide that's
a very reactive molecule ."

Dr. Roy Tasker
Associate Professor, University of Western Sydney

Link

Three dimensional images of atomic
structure and bonding, along with
concise explanations for bonding arrangements can be found at the NSTA
SciLinks site.

How to teach new concepts

"Many times I try to figure out what they
already know about the topic, and if I can find any fact
to start with, which they've learned in a previous grade,
I work and expand from there, and let them know where we
are going. Something they've learned in biology or in another
course or everyday life, and then go on from there ."

"One of the most important things that a
chemistry teacher has to be aware of is learning students'
patterns, the fact that people learn in different ways,
and try to make the subject approachable to students. What
is logical to us might not be logical to them and that's
where you need to start looking out for ways to make things
more concrete for them and build the abstract from that."

Irene Walsh
St. Andrew's Episcopal School, Maryland

Teaching chemistry

" If I were teaching I would first
try to give them the fundamentals, of why thats important,
why we're interested in the Periodic Table, why we're interested
in radiation, where all our elements come from, It's really
exciting-how this came to be, and what processes are involved."